Re-Figuring Child Support

March 19, 2010

by Larry Clow

In his 14 years as a New Hampshire legislator, Rep. David Bickford (R-New Durham) has seen efforts to re-calculate child support come and go. Many—about a dozen each year—make their way through the House or the Senate, but few succeed.

“We’re just Johnny-come-lately to make a change,” Bickford says. “We hire people, they work like dogs and come out with good reports, and the legislators say, ‘It’s over my head. We’ll study it and then get back to it maybe,’ and then we don’t. I see more interest in making changes. I’ve just never seen anything move so slow.”

Bickford, a member of the House Child and Family Law Committee, sponsored six of the 11 bills relating to child support this year, including House Bill 1474, which passed the House March 17. It would create a commission to move child support guidelines toward an “income shares” model.

States use one of three models to calculate child support payments. On paper, New Hampshire adopted the “income shares” model in 1988 to comply with federal child support regulations issued that year. It determines child support payments based on both parents’ incomes.

However, the actual formula used is closer to the “percentage of income model,” which sets child support as a flat percentage of the paying parent’s income, regardless of income level. (A sample child support calculator is online at http://www4.egov.nh.gov/DHHS_calculator/calc_form.asp).

“We should’ve been income shares,” Bickford says. “That’s what we said we were doing.” According to Bickford, that 1988 committee picked the wrong guideline.

Correcting that mistake has proven difficult. Legislative committees and outside studies—including a 2009 study conducted by the University of New Hampshire that advised a complete move to the income shares model—have recommended changes, but lawmakers have been slow to respond.

The most likely culprit, according to Bickford, is that child support is an issue many lawmakers just don’t understand. The subject is dense, and with hundreds of other bills to consider, legislators simply don’t have the time to devote to an issue that mixes heavy emotions with complicated formulas and legal minutiae. New Hampshire is one of the few states in which the Legislature is responsible for changes to child support guidelines; usually, it’s left to the courts or state agencies.

“They don’t get time to try and understand it, and that may have a lot to do with it,” Bickford says. “A number of people on the committee didn’t even know we were required to have guidelines by federal law.”

The commission established by HB 1474 would also look at the Melson Formula—a method developed by Delaware Judge Elwood Melson in 1989 that takes into account each parent’s income, establishes a “self-support allowance” for the parents, and factors in medical and child care expenses, plus standards of living.

A commission like that may be able to sway the overall formula eventually. In the meantime, even when change does come, Bickford says, it comes slowly.

On March 3, the House passed House Bill 1491, which revises the child support formula in cases where divorced parents have equal time with a child. Vermont adopted this provision in 1988 and other states have long had it on the books.

“Other states are so forward on these things,” Bickford says.

Multiple Support Orders

Bickford also sponsored House Bill 1420, which adjusts child support according to the number of children involved. For example, if a support order covers three children, the rate currently might be set at 40 percent of the paying parent’s income. When one of those children turns 18 and “ages out” of the support order, the rate remains the same. Parents must go to court to request changes—something they can do once every three years.

House Bill 1420 would allow judges to write future changes into the original child support order. Judges could specify, for example, that when one child ages out, the support rate drops to 30 percent, and so on. Texas uses similar regulations, on which Bickford based HB 1420. It passed the House March 17.

“[It] keeps people from having to go to court as much and takes some of the burden off the courts,” Bickford says.

Records Access

The Senate Commerce, Labor and Consumer Protection Committee currently is looking at House Bill 1165, which would add records from cell phones, Internet service and satellite TV providers to what the Dept. of Health and Human Services uses to locate people who aren’t paying child support. Sponsored by Rep. Edward Moran (R-Nashua), the bill was requested by DHHS, according to Timothy Frazier, the department’s legislative liaison.

While some lawmakers have expressed concerns about privacy, Frazier said the records are limited to a person’s name, address and employer.

Updating the law to include contemporary utilities is a “necessary part of what the child support office does,” Frazier says. “Without being able to locate responsible parents, we can’t do our jobs at all.”

Other News

The House Resources, Recreation and Development Committee will once again take up the issue of groundwater withdrawals in public hearings Tuesday, April 6. Senate Bill 56 adds considerations of financial responsibility to the purview of the legislative commission that looks at groundwater withdrawal issues. Senate Bill 411 would allow only the Department of Environmental Services to issue permits for large groundwater withdrawals.

One effort to repeal the “LLC tax” failed last week when House members voted 190-150 to instead study the tax further. The Senate is working on its own bill to repeal it, and Gov. John Lynch has indicated repeal is part of his soon-to-be-released deficit reduction plan.

The Senate will vote March 24 on Senate Bill 489 to expand gaming in up to six locations across the state. A successful amendment to that bill by Sen. Kathleen Sgambati (D-Tilton) would direct the first $50 million in revenue to public services recently cut from DHHS. The Senate Finance Committee voted 5-2 on March 18 to recommend the bill should pass.

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Filed under: Child Support, Commerce, Family, Money, Uncategorized, gambling, taxes

Tags: 2010, Child Support, David Bickford, gambling, groundwater, HB 1165, HB 1420, HB 1474, HB 1491, income shares, Kathleen Sgambati, legislation, LLC tax, Melson formula, New Hampshire, NH, percentage of income, SB 489, SB 56, state house, support orders